Commentaire sur Les Nombres 13:30

ויהס כלב AND CALEB STILLED [THE PEOPLE] — he caused all of them to be silent.

ויהס כלב את העם, he silenced the people who had begun to raise their voices, as they did afterwards when the Torah reports in 14,1 “all the people raised their voices and the cried the whole night.”

ויהס כלב את העם, Caleb silenced the people, etc. Seeing that an ordinary individual is not capable of silencing a people numbering hundreds of thousands, the Torah adds the words אל משה, to tell us that he silenced them in order to make them listen to Moses, not to himself. We know from Deut. 33,5 that Moses' rank was equivalent to the rank of a king. Caleb invoked the awe and respect due to a king in order to silence the people. Having invoked Moses' authority, he said: "we most certainly are able to to go up and take possession of the land." He meant that in spite of the other spies' having said: "we cannot overcome this people," he felt that the Israelites would be able to prevail.